Eskom’s ex-CFO a ‘liar’

Former Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh was accused of lying about who paid for his travels to Dubai as he testified before the parliamentary inquiry into the power utility yesterday.

Singh, who resigned on the eve of his appearance, was questioned by Advocate Ntuthuzelo Vanara for less than an hour when the evidence leader confronted him with proof that a flight to Dubai in 2017 and a hotel stay years earlier were both funded by Sahara Computers, owned by the Gupta family.

Singh had insisted that “the Gupta family did not pay for any of my travels”, saying the cost was covered by a mutual acquaintance who invited him to the United Arab Emirates.

After confronting Singh with the paid invoice, Vanara asked whether the acquaintance had any link with Sahara Computers. Singh said: “Not that I know.”

He said he had no personal relationship with the Guptas, although he had met the brothers and may have crossed paths with them when they stayed at the same hotel in Dubai.

Vanara then turned to the negotiating of a coal contract with the Guptas’ Tegeta Exploration and how it came about that a penalty imposed on the Optimum coal mine it had acquired was slashed.

He confronted Singh with a note from former Oakbay board member Mark Parmensky demanding that the R2.1 billion penalty imposed by Eskom on Glencore, the previous owner of the mine, be made to “go away”.

Singh said he had left the arbitration process that saw the fine reduced to less than half a billion rand in the hands of former Eskom head of legals Suzanne Daniels, but had signed off on it because she was not comfortable doing both.

“Ms Daniels was responsible for negotiations at the time. Ms Daniels believed that given the fact that she was negotiating the contract, it would not be appropriate for her to sign it.”

The inquiry was sparked in part by the public protector’s 2015 report which found that Eskom appeared to have gone out of its way to ensure that Tegeta obtained the mine and a lucrative coal supply contract.